by Megachusen 23 Replies latest jw friends
This isn't science - and neither is Creationism.
Removing reductionism, whether by a Creator or an appeal to infinity makes them both 'just-so' stories.
We might as well be discussing how Marduk made the cosmos out of Tiamat chunks. We'll just change his name to infinity.
metatron
NVL:
Lets say the probability of winning Lotto is p (0 < p < 1). Lets call the probability of winning in lotto if one playes every day for an infinite number of days is Q. Lets leave the philosophical details aside and assume it exist (which we have both done). I claim Q = 1.
Proof:
Assume Q < 1. That means that the probability of NOT winning the lottery in an infinite amount of playes is 1-Q > 0.
The probability of NOT winning the lottery in 1 play is 1-p and not winning it in N dayes (1 play a day) is (1-p)^N. Clearly we must have
(1-p)^N >= 1-Q > 0.
for all N.
Now choose N such that N > log(1-Q)/log(1-p) and you have derived a contradiction. Thus Q = 1.
"An infinite amount of time would imply infinite probability. Infinite probability means that every single thing possible would occur eventually."
If you believe that given enough time everything possible would occur and you believe time is infinite then I guess you believe that everything has aready occured. That that pen along with everything else has already exists somewhere. The problem I have with this argument is that I don't see where time is infinite. It is part of our physical universe and may not have existed before the universe came in it being. Also I don't believe that even Bible teaches that time is infinite so I think you could even use that argument with someone who believes in the Bible. Well, maybe you could because I think a lot of people who believe in the Bible may believe time has always been around and exists everywhere.
I quit, I personally make no claim as to whether the universe is infinite in any sense. Science doesn't know at this point.
If I was going to speculate and say that this universe is infinite than yes, everything with a probability higher than absolute 0 would have happened. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't understand the concept of endlessness.
Anyone who knows anything about mathematics (which I have basic knowledge in) would know that infinity isn't a value and that taking a sample of it would destroy the meaning of infinity itself. Even if I waited 10 100 years for a pencil to somehow appear in the universe and it didn't happen I could still wait another 10 100 years and another after that. In fact I would have and endless amount googols that I could sit patiently through until I hit a point where there was a pencil in the universe that I was occupying.
Most religions in the world claim that God has always existed and therefore this argument would apply to that reasoning. Also saying that I can't use a hypothetical situation in an argument is ludicrous.
Also anyone who is interested in probability in infinities should look at this website: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ndr/ProbabilityParadox.html
It's an interesting little read that demonstrates my point perfectly.
